Cranes galore at M&T Expo

The M&T Expo in Sao Paulo, Brazil last June was teaming with cranes from a multitude of manufacturers, including new offerings from Terex, Zoomlion, Manitowoc, Link-Belt and more.

A big announcement from Link-Belt at the show was that Brasil Máquinas de Construção (BMC) has been appointed as the Link-Belt crane distributor for Brazil.

BMC will represent the manufacturer of telescopic boom and lattice boom cranes throughout Brazil, delivering service, parts, accessories and equipment. The company will also offer training and technical support through its network of distributors and dealers across the country.

Felipe Cavalieri, president and CEO of BMC, forecasts sales success for the Link-Belt range as there is increased demand from infrastructure projects across Brazil.

Link-Belt also displayed three of its cranes at this year's M&T Expo.

On show were the 50-ton capacity 108 Hylab 5 lattice boom crawler crane, the 60-ton RTC-8065 Series II rough terrain crane and the 85-ton HTT-86100 truck crane.

The 108 Hylab 5 has a 42.7-meter boom. Maximum tip height is 49.7 meters. Available with a front or rear mounted third drum, it is often used for dragline and clamshell work.

The RTC-8065 Series II has a 35-meter four-section boom. An optional bi-folding fly attachment extends maximum tip height to 54.9 meters. Two optional lattice fly inserts further extend the tip height to 64.3 meters. Power comes from a 175 kW Caterpillar C6.6 engine.

Link-Belt's HTT-86100 truck crane has steerable rear axles and offers four steering modes: independent front, independent rear, combination, and crab. The HTT-86100 has a five-section boom with a maximum height of 42.7 meters. Maximum tip height is 72.2 meters with two 4.9-meter lattice inserts installed between the boom head and the fly.

Manitowoc presented its first crane from its new factory in Brazil.

The 59-tonne capacity Grove RT765E-2 rough terrain crane was assembled in the Passo Fundo plant 60 days ahead of schedule, said the company.

It was bought by Brazil-based Makro Engenharia, and is the first in a 32-crane order from the rental giant, including 16 rough terrains and 16 all terrains, although the latter will not be produced in Brazil. Makro plans to put the cranes to work in mining, petrochemical and infrastructure projects throughout Latin America.

The RT765E-2 has four-wheel, multi-mode steering and the manufacturer's Full Vision cab that helps operators maneuver around rugged jobsites.

Tower crane production will soon start there and no other product type is out of the question, added the company. The factory is expected to be assembling 60 percent of its rough terrains from local suppliers within five years.

Terex Cranes has also produced the first rough terrain crane from its new assembly plant in Brazil.

The 50-tonne capacity RT555 Progress represents the initial step in a renewed drive to capture the Brazilian and general Latin American market.

With the first phase of the Cachoeirinha-based plant complete, rough terrain parts are being brought in as complete knock-down (CKD) kits from the established Waverly facility for assembly. In the second phase, Terex aims to receive accreditation for local companies to supply components.

At the M&T Expo Terex press conference, Kevin Bradley, Terex Cranes president, said the acquisition last year of industrial and port equipment manufacturer Demag AG would also prove vital in targeting the Latin American market. Using Demag's established extensive dealer network in the continent, Terex plans to retrain those employees to represent all Terex crane products.

"We are reinventing our approach to the Latin American market. We are leading with a focus on customer service by leveraging our new employees from Demag. We will also bring product specialists to those regions - the approach has to be regional," Bradley added. "We do not feel good about our involvement in the market historically. We now need to take our share of the market by expanding investment in local service."

With developing markets representing 30 percent of Terex business, Latin America takes about 25 percent of that.

Expanding on crane production at Cachoeirinha, Bradley said, "We will not be limited by production capacity and are now waiting to see how the market reacts to our news." Further rough terrain models are a distinct possibility, concluded Bradley, as are other crane types.

Meanwhile, Liebherr has no plans to introduce a manufacturing plant in Brazil for the production of crawler or mobile cranes in the immediate future.

Georg Reinbold, area sales manager for mobile and crawler cranes, said, "We are investigating the possibility of producing custom products for this market, but we find that it is cheaper for the customer to import existing cranes rather than producing or assembling locally."

Although Reinbold added that sooner-or-later, possibly in the next three to five years, Liebherr could set up such a facility but it would depend on whether local suppliers were able to provide the required components and parts. For example, Brazil is not yet able to supply the high strength steel used on many of the manufacturer´s crawler and wheeled-mobile cranes.

The 220-tonne capacity LTM 1220 wheeled mobile telescopic crane is the biggest selling crane product from Liebherr in Brazil. There are more than 150 units in the Brazilian market, said Reinbold.

While wheeled mobile sales are still buoyant, Reinbold added that crawler sales had dropped off from last year while contractors wait for major infrastructure projects to be signed off by the government.

For more news and product information from M&T, see the July issue of American Cranes & Transport magazine.